Swim little fishy, oh swim if you can...

Have you ever listened to the layers in music? I’ve picked up the habit this year and I find it fascinating. It requires a different approach to listening to music than you would normally use. First, think of music like a pond. There’s the pond surface, the bottom, and all the space in between. You can look at it as a whole, or you can look at different spots in the water. You can focus on the play of light off the surface of the water. Or you can peer at the stones littering the bottom of the pool, and how the light touches them. Or you can watch the little fishes swimming around in the middle regions of their watery world.

In music, the melody might be the light on the surface of the pool. The stones on the bottom might be the base line, or the chord structure, or the constant pulse of the rhythm section. The fishes could be the countermelody, the harmony, the accompaniment.

When I slip into the mindset of listening for the individual components of my music pond, I feel like I’m one of the fish swimming around. I feel like I’m in a fluid open space, bounded by melody above and chordal structure beneath, surrounded by all the interlocking bits that make music full and rich and vibrant. I can choose which little piece to swim with and examine closely, or I can choose to hover in the midst of the song and take in the whole panorama. It’s like floating in the middle depths of a swimming pool and watching all the activity that takes place between the watery ceiling and pebble-tech floor.

I don’t know if I’m making any sense, but this was the best metaphor I could come up with. I’m reminded of something my professor said in my World Music Cultures class. He talked about how strange it is to write about something that is purely auditory, and quoted someone as saying, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” Or in this case, scuba diving.